KOLKATA: Hours after the Election Commission of India (ECI) released the draft electoral rolls on Tuesday, the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee held a meeting with Booth Level Agents (BLAs) in Bhawanipore assembly constituency this evening.
Senior leaders and Kolkata civic body councillors of the party and ministers like Firhad Hakim attended the meeting.
Bhawanipore constituency recorded around 44,000 dead and bogus voters as per the draft electoral rolls after completion of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls for West Bengal.
The release of the draft rolls has prompted the ruling Trinamool Congress and the opposition to go for political equations in terms of electoral advantage ahead of the assembly polls scheduled next year in the State.
This afternoon, Mamata asked the party leaders and BLAs to verify the alleged reports of alive voters whose names have been deleted as dead in the draft electoral rolls.
The Trinamool Congress supremo, who has been strongly opposing the SIR exercise since the ECI announced dates of voters’ list revision in the State in October, instructed the party BLA to check the draft rolls so that no genuine voter is deleted.
She asked them to conduct door-to-door visits to help voters in every booth.
Significantly, the names of 127 voters that have been deleted in the draft roll of Mitra Institution of polling booth (no. 260), is where Mamata casts her votes.
Thirteen out of these deleted voters are dead, while the rest have been shifted permanently. The draft rolls seem to be a setback for the BJP camp as well with the deletion of 86,000 voters in the Matua-dominated Bongaon subdivision in North 24 Parganas district.
There had been a phenomenal rise for BJP in Matua vote bank in Nadia, North 24 Parganas and parts of Jalpaiguri districts since 2019.